1. Field of the Invention
The apparatus of the present invention relates to dental appliances. More particularly, the present invention relates to an improved retractor apparatus for retracting certain areas of a patient's mouth such as the lips and the cheek in order to allow greater access to the patient's mouth during dental work such as orthodontics.
2. General Background
Quite often in conducting dental work on a patient, such as orthodontics or the like type of operation, there is a requirement that the patient's lip and cheek be positioned so as to allow the dentist maximum access to the area of the mouth in which the operation will be conducted, which in most cases is in the area of the rear teeth such as the wisdom teeth or molars. Furthermore, during certain procedures such as those conducted by an orthodontist, it is important to retract the soft tissue away from the teeth undergoing the orthodontic procedure in order to provide comfortable access to a dry field, including the buccal surfaces of maxillary and mandibular second molars simultaneously, for allowing bonding of orthodontic appliances, such as braces, to the teeth.
While this is an important aspect of an appliance that would be utilized in order to meet these requirements, it is also important that the patient who is normally awake and aware and unanesthetized, be in as much comfort as possible during the procedure.
For example, there are appliances known in the art which have been utilized for affording access into a patient's mouth during a procedure. One of the more common types of retractors is called a Bishop Retractor, which is a surgical instrument apparatus which is grasped by a standing surgeon or an assistant who holds the cheek of the patient out with one hand while he, the surgeon, conducts a surgical procedure with the other hand. The Bishop retractor is a rather simple instrument, and is used primarily, if not exclusively, in surgical procedures while the patient is anesthetized.
Secondly, U.S. Pat. No. 5,730,597, which was patented by Clifford Luttrell, and assigned to the United States of America, teaches a flat, buccal retractor which attempts to solve the problem in the art. However, this instrument butt or end is quite narrow and sharp which would lead to discomfort for the patient, and also would not allow for keeping soft tissue and saliva out of the field in an orthodontic procedure The narrow sharp-ended cheek retractor of Luttrell is designed to be used in an operating room setting by a standing surgeon on a fully anesthetized patient. It is designed to retract unsurgerized tissue to allow access to that soft tissue on the stretch to facilitate surgerizing the stretched tissue. Furthermore, it could be used to retract surgerized tissue to allow visualization of, and access to, the bony maxilla beneath the soft tissue in order to allow instrumentation, irrigation, and cutting of the bony jaw with a rotary or reciprocating instrument. Again, these procedures are normally done in a wet field on an anesthetized patient by a standing surgeon.
The Luttrell instrument, in one embodiment, retracts either the left upper lip or the right lower lip, but not simultaneously. The other, mirror form of the instrument retracts the left lower lip or right upper lip, but again, not simultaneously. Therefore, there is a need in the industry for providing an improved retractor apparatus which would allow a dentist to work in a dry field for doing, in particular, orthodontic procedures, and shaped in order to have greater comfort for the patient, and so constructed so that the instrument allows the left upper and lower lips, as well as the lip commissure and cheek, to be retracted simultaneously by the orthodontist. The mirror image instrument would be used to retract the right upper and lower lips, as well as the right commissure and cheek. Furthermore, there is a need to allow such a device to be utilized wherein the dentist or orthodontist may conduct the procedure while being seated rather than having to hover over the patient, which one may have to do if one utilized the Luttrell device in the procedure.